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The post agrarian nuclear family, popularized by shows like Father Knows Best in the 1950s and 60s, may not be sustainable in today’s economy. Sociologists and social historians have long said that marriage and the Mom, Dad and the kids arrangement is quite recent. In fact, it was not long ago that a significant percentage of siblings did not marry at all. In today’s America, it is getting increasingly difficult to go to college, buy a home and settle down and raise a family. Today’s young people are struggling to get jobs and parents are staying put in their homes well after retirement… Perhaps it is the baby boomers leading these trends. Ironically, just like they made noise for their elders and their parents in the 1960s, so too are their children today as they are crowding their nests and spending their life savings… Empty nest syndrome is being replaced with a new, perhaps more uncomfortable version of the extended family… At least extended at the bank as families struggle to face a new reality in an economy that undervalues education and yields few jobs and opportunities for the baby boomers “boomies” …

“In 2012, 36% of the nation’s young adults ages 18 to 31—the so-called Millennial generation—were living in their parents’ home, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data. This is the highest share in at least four decades and represents a slow but steady increase over the 32% of their same-aged counterparts who were living at home prior to the Great Recession in 2007 and the 34% doing so when it officially ended in 2009.

A record total of 21.6 million Millennials lived in their parents’ home in 2012, up from 18.5 million of their same aged counterparts in 2007. Of these, at least a third and perhaps as many as half are college students. (In the census data used for this analysis, college students who live in dormitories during the academic year are counted as living with their parents).

Younger Millennials (ages 18 to 24) are much more likely than older ones (ages 25 to 31) to be living with their parents—56% versus 16%. Since the onset of the 2007-2009 recession, both age groups have experienced a rise in this living arrangement.”

The median income of American households decreased by as much in the two years after the official end of the Great Recession as it did during the recession itself.

The latest estimates from the Census Bureau show that the median income for U.S. households in 2011 was $50,054. In 2009, the year the Great Recession ended, the median income of U.S. households had been $52,195 (in 2011 dollars). Thus, in the two years since the end of the recession, median household income has fallen by 4.1%.

The decrease in household income from 2009 to 2011 almost exactly equaled the decrease in income in the two years of the recession. During the Great Recession, the median U.S. household income (in 2011 dollars) dropped from $54,489 in 2007 to $52,195 in 2009, a loss of 4.2%. By this yardstick, the recovery from the Great Recession is bypassing most of the nation’s households.

THESE days, a rich country growth figure not preceded by a minus sign is a rarity worth boasting about. Britain and much of Europe are in recession. By contrast, America’s first quarter performance—a 2.2% annual rate of growth—looks positively …

Two years after the U.S. labor market hit bottom, the economic recovery has yielded slow but steady gains in employment for all groups of workers. The gains, however, have varied across demographic groups, with Hispanics and Asians, in particular, experiencing a faster rate of growth in jobs than other groups.

Their employment levels are higher now than just before the start of the Great Recession in December 2007, a milestone not yet reached by white and black workers.

A majority of Latinos (54%) believe that the economic downturn that began in 2007 has been harder on them than on other groups in America.

Large shares report that they or someone in their household has been out of work in the past year (59%); that their personal finances are in “only fair” or “poor” shape (75%); that they canceled or delayed a major purchase in the past year (49%); or that they are underwater on their mortgage (28% of Latino homeowners).

How goes the state of the union? Well, the state of the economy remains terrible. Three years after President Obama’s inauguration and two and a half years since the official end of the recession, unemployment remains painfully …

A sharp decline in fertility rates in the United States that started in 2008 is closely linked to the souring of the economy that began about the same time, according to a new analysis of multiple economic and demographic data sources by the Pew Research Center.

The year 2007 marked a record high number of births in the U.S.–4,316,233. Since then, births have been declining even as the U.S. population continues to grow. Preliminary data for 2009 indicate that the number of births dropped to 4,131,018, the lowest number since 2004. Provisional data shows that in 2010 births numbered just over 4 million (4,007,000).

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